"... Planning under uncertainty is a central problem in the study of automated sequential decision making, and has been addressed by researchers in many different fields, including AI planning, decision analysis, operations research, control theory and economics. While the assumptions and perspectives ..."

Planning under uncertainty is a central problem in the study of automated sequential decision making, and has been addressed by researchers in many different fields, including AI planning, decision analysis, operations research, control theory and economics. While the assumptions and perspectives adopted in these areas often differ in substantial ways, many planning problems of interest to researchers in these fields can be modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs) and analyzed using the techniques of decision theory. This paper presents an overview and synthesis of MDP-related methods, showing how they provide a unifying framework for modeling many classes of planning problems studied in AI. It also describes structural properties of MDPs that, when exhibited by particular classes of problems, can be exploited in the construction of optimal or approximately optimal policies or plans. Planning problems commonly possess structure in the reward and value functions used to de...

"... A digital computer is generally believed to be an efficient universal computing device; that is, it is believed able to simulate any physical computing device with an increase in computation time of at most a polynomial factor. This may not be true when quantum mechanics is taken into consideration. ..."

"... The -calculus is considered an useful mathematical tool in the study of programming languages, since programs can be identified with -terms. However, if one goes further and uses fij-conversion to prove equivalence of programs, then a gross simplification 1 is introduced, that may jeopardise the ..."

is about logics for reasoning about programs, in particular for proving equivalence of programs. Following a consolidated tradition in theoreticalcomputerscience we identify programs with the closed -terms, possibly containing extra constants, corresponding to some features of the programming language

"... This dissertation is a defense of the hypothesis that the noun phrase is headed by afunctional element (i.e., \non-lexical &quot; category) D, identi ed with the determiner. In this way, the structure of the noun phrase parallels that of the sentence, which is headed by In (ection), under assump ..."

phrases. The problem of capturing this dual aspect of the Possing construction is heightened by current restrictive views of X-bar theory, which, in particular, rule out the obvious structure for Poss-ing, [NP NP VPing], by virtue of its exocentricity. Consideration of languages in which nouns, even

"... A computer is generally considered to be a universal computational device; i.e., it is believed able to simulate any physical computational device with a increase in computation time of at most a polynomial factor. It is not clear whether this is still true when quantum mechanics is taken into consi ..."

A computer is generally considered to be a universal computational device; i.e., it is believed able to simulate any physical computational device with a increase in computation time of at most a polynomial factor. It is not clear whether this is still true when quantum mechanics is taken

"... Trust is a judgement of unquestionable utility — as humans we use it every day of our lives. However, trust has suffered from an imperfect understanding, a plethora of definitions, and informal use in the literature and in everyday life. It is common to say “I trust you, ” but what does that mean? T ..."

for the consideration of other agents and the environment in which it exists. Moreover, a formalisation of trust enables the embedding of the concept into an artificial agent. This has been done, and is documented in the thesis. 2. Exposition There are places in the thesis where it is necessary to give a broad outline

"... We develop techniques to compute higher loop string amplitudes for twisted N = 2 theories with ĉ = 3 (i.e. the critical case). An important ingredient is the discovery of an anomaly at every genus in decoupling of BRST trivial states, captured to all orders by a master anomaly equation. In a particu ..."

’ of holomorphic curves of higher genus curves in Calabi–Yau manifolds. It is shown that topological amplitudes can also be reinterpreted as computing corrections to superpotential terms appearing in the effective 4d theory resulting from compactification of standard 10d superstrings on the corresponding N = 2

"... A vast body of theoretical research has focused either on overly simplistic models of parallel computation, notably the PRAM, or overly specific models that have few representatives in the real world. Both kinds of models encourage exploitation of formal loopholes, rather than rewarding developme ..."

A vast body of theoretical research has focused either on overly simplistic models of parallel computation, notably the PRAM, or overly specific models that have few representatives in the real world. Both kinds of models encourage exploitation of formal loopholes, rather than rewarding